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After her mother's plane went missing over the Indian Ocean, seventeen-year-old Sienna Jones gave up everything she loved about living in California. No more surfing. No more swimming. No more ocean, period. Playing it safe, hiding from the world, is the best call.

Until her dad throws down the challenge of a lifetime: spend the summer with his humanitarian team in Indonesia, working with orphans who lost everything in a massive tsunami.

The day they arrive, Sienna meets a mysterious boy named Deni, whose dark, intense eyes make her heart race. Their stolen nights force her to open up and live in a way she thought she couldn't anymore. When she’s with Deni, she remembers the girl she used to be… and starts to feel like the woman he sees in her.

A woman he wants for his own.

Gulp.

But when Deni’s past comes looking for him, Sienna’s faced with losing another person she loves. She can’t do it. Not again.

Fortunately, this time, she has a plan.

In 2004, I was a resident of China, attending an American school. Like many of my teachers and classmates, I spent Christmas in South East Asia. (It was closer and therefore cheaper to go to a tropical destination than home to South Africa.) My family was lucky. We met up with my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Singapore, then headed down to an island off of El Nido, Philippines. On the 27th of December, we left, taking a boat, and then a rickety plane, and then another plane back to Singapore. It was only then that I discovered what had happened on the 26th. An enormous earthquake (magnitude 9.1-9.3) occurred in the Indian Ocean, triggering tsunamis that hit coasts all around it, killing over 200,000 people. Just after New Year’s, shortly before returning to school, I learned that one of my friends was visiting Thailand, and his entire family, save his 4-year-old sister, were washed out to sea.

So you could say I had a lot of baggage going into this book, and it was difficult for me to read.

I had an initial wobble with the book at the start. I think this was due to a mismatch of expectations and reality, so I’ll save you the trouble. This is a bit more realistic and serious than your typical YA contemporary from Entangled. I should have known this; I would have probably been a bit offended in the long run if the author trivialised the aftermath of the tsunami. But it’s more than just the experience of people in Indonesia. Sienna, the MC, had her own troubles to deal with, a lingering grief and PTSD after losing her mother years before. Add to that changes to her friendships over the years, plus watching her dad move on, and she’s got a pretty tough adolescence. All of her issues are laid out in the first chapter, and this is probably why I stumbled. I wasn’t prepared for the emotions, especially when I was already nervous about how I would feel once she got to Indonesia.

Aside from a few bits that I thought were iffy, I appreciated the exploration of all the complicated feelings and experiences the Indonesians – and Sienna – were going through. While this was a romance, it was more than just your typical fluffy story. Sienna and Deni helped each other tackle their respective problems, helped each other to begin healing. And it was more than just that still. The book was filled with so much culture. Having been to Indonesia and having some friends from there, it was nice to return to the country via this book, even if it was through the eyes of an American going over to save people. And it also brought even more nostalgia because I, too, volunteered at an orphanage, except in Cambodia, and those children gave me so much life.

It took me a while to get through this book because of the start and my own feelings, but it was an interesting and unexpected adventure. But I want others to read this, mostly because I want people to remember that this tsunami happened, and that it had such a devastating effect on soooo many people. The ending was perfect, and it made me well up. There’s a sequel coming, and I need more of this soul medicine!

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